


did you clean the house?

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Daisy Centric, F/M, Fluff, Post S7, Tiny bit angsty, dousy baby, heavy mentions of jiaying and past traumas, jemma is the bestest friend ever, pregnant!daisy, soooooo corny, the story of how daisy was born but make it dousy, they all live in perthshire and it’s all very lovely, very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25821448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Daniel sniffs the air. “It smells good in here, almost like—” He turns back at her then, his face soft as he pushes back the hair that stuck to her forehead, “Dais, did you...did you clean the house?”It’s only there, seated—Daniel holding her hands while the summer air came through the windows and the full moon shines through—does Daisy fully realize what she just did.A memory from another life comes back.Someone else’s story.For some reason I decided to clean the house before I woke your father—Daisy lets out a shuddering breath. Her eyes burn with the familiar prickle of tears.“Y-Yeah,” She chokes out, her heart as heavy as it’s been in a while. “I guess I did…”or: Daisy thinks she would’ve liked to be who Jiaying was, before...
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 16
Kudos: 138





	did you clean the house?

**Author's Note:**

> OK SO! i don’t know what the hell is going on agents of shield tbh sjdhdh i stopped watching after s5 so i know the most basic of things and what i got from seeing clips/fanvids on youtube ( omg go watch sunnyvids “counting paths” daisy & sousa video that’s LITERALLY what dragged me back lmfao ) BUT anyways...the story of daisy’s birth is so bittersweet to me idk jiaying/cal/daisy get me sooo sad. 
> 
> so i wrote a very corny one shot of daisy doing the same as jiaying did cos i’m sentimental and cry for everything ok bye

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  


Daisy doesn’t realize the dull pain she had been feeling are _contractions_ until after Daniel falls asleep. 

It’s not too painful—Daisy’s known pain, it’s so familiar she can see it before she feels it. But there hasn’t been pain in her life for a long while now so the arrival of it in that moment nearly knocks the wind out of her. 

The first thing she does is panic. Only slightly. 

She panics because technically, she wasn’t supposed to be due for another week...August 18th to be exact. Thinking on it, Jemma did always babble on about how due dates were more of a jumping off point than anything and one should never be fully reliant on them—naturally. The point was that she was now in the middle of her kitchen with the windows up because it’s late July and it’s an unusually hot day for Perthshire. 

She also panics because _motherhood_ was not familiar to her the way pain is. Seeing it in Jemma and the unfailing love she showers little Maisie and baby Elijah is not the same as doing it. 

Daisy didn’t grow up with her mom. She was betrayed by Jiaying in one lifetime and simultaneously saved and erased from existence by her in another. She had the misfortune of watching her mom die _twice_ , in front of her, because of her...she doesn’t have a clue about what _handling_ being a mom is the way she used to handle a good punch or the loss of someone close to her. 

None of that should matter though.

There was no more pain in her life. Daisy knows used to be someone who was made for that, but not anymore. Now, she’s somewhere painless. Any pain is welcomed; if only to remind her that this, her life now, is all _very_ real. It’s not some computerized simulation or some alternate timeline taunting her with things she cannot have. 

Another contraction. _Very, very real._

  
  
  
  


⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

  
  
  


The second thing she does is clean the house.

She doesn’t exactly know _why,_ all she knows is that she can feel the floor is dirty under her bare feet and the table still has plates and whatnot from the dinner Daniel made earlier and it makes her anxious. Without thinking twice she gets out the cleaning supplies and before she knows it, she’s washed the dishes, swept, and is halfway done mopping before she feels another contraction. She tenses from the pain. The house smells like a field of daisies and feels clean enough to her that she sets the mop aside, her prior rush of energy fading. 

Daisy walks ( more like waddles ) over to the living room. She opens the windows and is met with the warm summer air, the thin curtains blowing from the wind. It’s fresher than her feverish skin is but it’s still enough to make her hair stick to her forehead. 

“OK, all done,” She murmurs as she takes a seat on the nearby rocking chair that Mack gifted her. “I guess we'll wait until you’re ready. Apparently we’re on _your_ time bambino...”

  
  
  


⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

  
  
  


The third thing she does is find the Feng Shui necklace. The one from her timeline. She never used to be religious, God had never showed himself

to her, there had never been any mercy for her and her friends. But if there’s anything that all she’s been through has taught her, is that evil spirits are very, very, real. 

Daisy clutches the necklace in her hand. She can’t think of a better way to protect her baby or herself.

(Quaking people works, sure, but not in this case...)

Nothing can shake off misfortune. 

Not even Daisy. 

  
  
  


⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

  
  
  
  
  


The fourth thing she does, is text Jemma. Obviously.

**DAISY:** _In labor????? I think???_

Just then another contraction. 

**DAISY:** _Scratch that I am!!!_

There’s a slight delay in the reply. It is after midnight and the cell service here is, quite literally, _shitty_. 

**JEMMA:** _How far apart are your contractions????_

**DAISY:** _Last one was now but the one before was 15 mins ago_

**JEMMA:** _They’re mild then!! Still a while to go!_

Daisy doesn’t get to text back because Jemma’s name and off guard caller ID pops up on her phone screen. She answers it. 

_“How goes it?”_ Jemma’s chirpy voice asks. 

Daisy looks at her phone flatly. “It’s definitely going, that's for sure,” She holds her stomach. 

“ _How’s Daniel? Freaking out? Do men from the fifties have more dignity with their wives in childbirth than the ones_ _now? Fitz was a wreck, he started tinkering with some prototype in the delivery room—!”_

“Jemma? Jems,” Daisy stops her. “I know our roles are supposed to be the other way right now but you gotta _breathe.”_ She hears an inhale. “Good. And he’s still asleep...I didn’t know if I should wake him up just yet.” 

_“I suppose not,”_ Jemma says. “ _No point in worrying him just yet if your contractions are fifteen—_ ”

A wave of pain caught a Daisy off guard. 

“ _Daisy?”_ Worry came from Jemma’s voice. _“Are you alright? Was that another contraction—?”_

“Mmhmm,” Daisy gets out through gritted teeth. “I think May was right about her mom’s whole ‘ _walking every day speeds up labor’_ thing. This kid is gonna come out quicker than expected…”

_“OK, no panic,”_ Jemma assures quickly. It sounds like she’s zipping things up and rushing around a room or something. “ _Uhh, there's obviously no time to reach the hospital, so, I’m on my way, alright? Was a homebirth on your birth plan?”_

“Oh, was I actually supposed to make those— _ahh, dammit—_ “ Daisy breathed in and out deeply, the dull pain on her lower back only getting worse. “Yeah, please, get here…”

It would take a while. Daisy and Daniel lived closer to the city for Daniel’s job as chief executive of the SHIELD office in the area. The hospital was still quite a distance even from where Daisy lived. Fitz and Jemma’s family lived further out in the country—Jemma’s wish, not Fitz, as he’s repeatedly stated but then again she is rarely denied anything, especially if Fitz has anything to say about it. 

“ _I’m already in the car,”_ Jemma says, the sound of a car starting up in the background. “ _I should be about thirty minutes just hold on until then.”_

Daisy snorts. “I’ll try.” 

_“Wake Daniel! I’ll be there soon as I can without breaking traffic laws, love you!”_

Then the line goes dead. 

Daisy reached over to the couch and got one of the large floor pillows, tossing it under her. She sat a few different ways until she ends up squatting—like some duck. But her back doesn’t hurt much this way. The only comfortable position she’s been in for a while. 

Right. Daniel. Daisy breathed out, realizing she would have to get up again to wake him up. 

“Daisy?” His voice. He’s already awake. “What are you—honey are you alright, did something—” He’s kneeling in front of her, concern written all over his handsome face. She could kiss him. 

She does. 

Without fail, he kisses her back. 

“I’m in labor,” She says when she pulls back. “Like, right _now._ ”

Daniel’s eyes widened. 

She could see a million different things behind his expression. But like always, he threw away his reactions to savor hers, to see what she needed. 

“The baby’s coming.” He stated. 

Daisy nodded rapidly. “Very quick too.” 

“OK,” The pragmatic in him kicked in. “Let’s get you up then, and I’ll get the keys and everything, you wait in the car—”

“No, no, Daniel,” Daisy holds him in place, the reality of what’s happening sinking in. “God, no this is the first position I’ve sat in that doesn’t make me wanna scream...Jemma’s on her way. It’s too late for the hospital and the contractions are already too close and I don’t wanna move from here—”

“Hey, hey, look at me,” He holds her face. “We gotta have the baby here, then we’ll have the baby here, Yeah?” She nods back. He grabs her hands and lets her squeeze them. “OK...there’s nobody who we’d trust more than Simmons.” 

Daisy smiled at that, “No, not a chance.” 

“Anything I can do?”

“Just hold my hands…”

“Of course,” He kisses them, too. 

She smiles more. “Dork…”

He feigned offense. “You married this dork,” He reminds, winking. “What does that say about you?”

“That I’m into dorks, obviously. Or that I have a really huge ego that needs to be stroked,” She tells him. “It’s a mixture of both I think.” 

He raised an amused brow, “Yeah, Quake, I think stroked more than your _ego—_ ”

“Haha,” Daisy hisses as another contraction comes back. She glares at him in his laughing eyes but cant help the smiles that shows on her lips. “A sex joke while your wife is in labor...I’ve been influencing you too much, Mr Sousa.” 

Daniel only chuckles. 

“Mack’s gonna be pissed he couldn’t be here.” 

She snorts, “I know, that softie. Hopefully he’ll get over it. Plus, he said my stomach looked like a watermelon last he saw me…”

“It does.”

Daisy smacks his shoulder. He laughs.

“Uh, you helped _make_ this watermelon.”

“And I enjoyed it, if I’m remembering correctly,” He grinned. She rolled her eyes at him, fond. _Dork._ “Just assure him that he can be here for the next one…”

Daisy smiled, real grand. “Next one—?” 

“Yeah,” He nodded. “I thought you said you wanted this one to have a _friend_ or something.”

“I did. I always wanted a big family…” She says distantly. “Plus, we can't let FitzSimmons beat us. They’ve already got two dammit...”

She trails off once sees him look around the house then. 

Daniel sniffs the air. “It smells good in here, almost like—” He turns back at her then, his face soft as he pushes back the hair that stuck to her forehead, “Dais, did you...did you clean the house?” 

It’s only there, seated—Daniel holding her hands while the summer air came through the windows and the full moon shines through—does Daisy fully realize what she just did. 

A memory from another life comes back. 

Someone else’s story. 

_For some reason I decided to clean the house before I woke your father—_ Daisy lets out a shuddering breath. Her eyes burn with the familiar prickle of tears. 

“Y-Yeah,” She chokes out, her heart as heavy as it’s been in a while. “I guess I did…”

The fondness on his face is enough to make the tears she has fall down her face. 

Daniel reaches out to wipe them away with his thumb, pulling her to lay her head on his chest. He kisses her temple. 

The silent sobs she lets down are a mixture of pain and memories so deeply buried, they appear with a force nearly as strong as her quakes…

Daniel knows the story. Of course he does. It’s why he looks at her the way he does now. That, _I love you more than words can describe_ look. The one he gives her when she helped save the world. When she said, _I do._ When she cries those helpless, heartbreaking sobs some nights because the reminder of what she lost and the nightmares of what she could've doesn’t allow her a moment of sleep. 

_Talk to me,_ He said while giving her that look. She couldn’t leave the bed that time, _Talk to me because I want to talk to you..._

It’s that fierce, devoted gaze Daniel never, ever fails in throwing her way, even five years later and three years married. He won’t ever stop. Not with all he knows about her...the losses and the smiles and the victories, he loves her for managing to come through all of them and still be willing and open enough to eventually end up loving him. 

Daisy is once again reminded that she doesn’t have to think of Daniel as something that can be taken from her. 

She’ll always have this, _him._

But in case not….

“Daniel,” She grabs his shirt to pull him close. Tears cloud her vision, “I don’t know what could happen...but in case anything does, promise me you’ll tell him or her, that I loved them?” She nods and continues, “Tell them I loved them so much I thought my heart would break…and you’ll give them this—” She gave him the Feng Shui necklace. “It’ll protect them.” 

Daniel looks like she’s just slapped him. 

His face darkens, “Don’t say things like that—”

“You never _know—_ ”

“ _No_ ,” Daniel cups her face. “No. You’re not leaving me. Neither of you are. I’m not going anywhere, I made that promise remember? I’m keeping it,” He swallowed thickly, hiding the obvious emotion he wanted to let out. “But you gotta meet me halfway, like we promised.”

Slowly, Daisy nodded. 

“I will,” She tells him. “But you gotta swear me you’ll do that, if the worst happens.” 

“It won’t,” He said with so much fierceness, she wholeheartedly believed him. “But...I’ll do anything for you, sweetheart.” 

Daisy feels infinitely better then. 

She cups his cheek. “Just like that, huh?”

“Exactly,” Daniel affirms. “You always come first to me.” She knows he means it. He stares back at her, taking in every feature. From her heavy-lidded to her full lips and flushed cheeks, “Always.”

Daisy nods, “You come first to me, too.” She rubs a soothing hand over her stomach. “But he or she will take that first place spot when they’re here…”

“Agreed,” He smiles and looks at her again. “Dais...I ever tell you how much I don’t deserve you?” He says. 

Daisy immediately knows he believes that. His voice tells her so. Whatever self-deprecating vision he has of himself has made him think he doesn’t deserve her; it breaks her heart hearing it. That still, after all this time, he still feels like he’s less than someone else and still has to earn the right to that loving look that’s always in her eyes when she looks at him. 

“ _Don’t_ say that.” She tells him, her hold on his hand tightens as she feels the pain in her lower back intensify. “It’s not true. You can’t say that, not _now_...” 

“You need to hear it,” He says. “So you know that you have someone here who’s gonna spend the rest of his life trying to be even an _ounce_ of what you deserve...because Dais, you deserve everything...you’ve been so strong for forever, you don’t even know it...I need you to know that you can count on me to be tough for you sometimes.”

Daisy doesn’t fight back her tears.

Daisy brushes a hand over his arm and smiles, he can see tears that are still in her eyes. "I always count on you.”

Daniel looks grateful to hear it.

She sighs, “You like seeing me cry, don't you?" 

"Not at all," Daniel says honestly. 

He wipes away the wetness on her cheeks for emphasis. 

"You _must_ ," She insists, pouting when he touches her face again. "Because it's all I do lately...cry about you. Cry about how wonderful you are. Cry about how much I wished we met sooner...but I guess it's not good to speak about what could've been…”

Another wave of pain ricocheted through her. 

“Call it destiny or whatever magical stuff people call it … I like to think no matter what,” Daniel goes around her and pulls her in his arms so that she’s leaning on his chest. She sighs in relief as the pain subsides just enough for her to be comfortable. “One lifetime or another...you were always meant to be my girl.” 

Daisy smiles back at him, her breathing a bit labored. 

“Aye, aye, Chief...I think that, too…” 

The front door is knocked upon but then opens.

Jemma is on the other side with duffle bags galore and still in her matching pajama set. She beamed at the sight of them and carefully dropped the bag beside her feet, closing the door behind her. 

“ _Hellloooo_ ,” Jemma nearly sings. “Oh, you two should see the moon right now, it’s bright and full— _beautiful…_ Maisie called it oreo stuffing, isn't that just so cute–?” She rushes over to Daisy, putting a machine on her to check her vitals. Her best friend/sister looks her in the eye, “I think that’s a good sign already, don’t you?”

Daisy’s heard this story before. She smiles softly. This one will be better. It has to be. 

She nods. “There was a moon like this the night I was born—”

Her water breaks just then. 

Jemma‘s eyes widened, “Well then. That’s settled. A good fortune all around.” 

Daisy holds Jemma and Daniel’s hand. She’s ready. 

  
  
  
  


⋇⋆✦⋆⋇

  
  
  
  
  


It took about three more hours, but the moon was still shining beautifully in the sky when Daisy’s daughter was born into the world. 

Daisy takes in every feature. Every tiny coo. Every time her daughter wrapped her whole hand around one of her fingers. Her red, scrunched face was just so precious, she couldn’t stop staring at her. She’s such a tiny, fragile thing...she scrunches her nose sometimes and it reminds him of Daniel. There's even moments where the baby girl will open her eyes and Daisy’ll catch the soft shade of hazel... they're golden, like coffee, and so pretty and Daniel says he can see Daisy’s courage in them—he can see the center of his world. 

“Phillipa Sousa then,” Daniel recites what she told him. 

Daisy smiles then corrects, “Phillipa Anne.” 

“For Jemma and Coulson?” Daniel asks. 

Looking in her arms, at her daughter, Daisy nods. 

“Good names,” He smiles. 

“Right? And Pippa is a cute nickname…”

She also didn’t know a better way to _thank_ two of the most important people that have ever been in her life for just... _being_ there. She’d have Jemma to look at until she’s old and grey, they promised, but Daisy couldn’t see Coulson now…

She couldn’t present her daughter to him like the glorious gift she is and see him hold her...she couldn’t hear him say, once more, just _once more_ than the letter he wrote her, “ _I am so proud…”_ He gave her everything. She told him that, and she saw the way his eyes watered. The least she can do is name her daughter after him and protect her baby girl and love her as fiercely and unfailingly as she loved the man who got to be a father to her when her own couldn’t. 

“He would’ve been so proud,” Daniel always says the right thing.

( Daisy knows now, she can finally open the letter. )

Phillipa has her mother's skin tone, a little more olive than anything, but something about her face and the dark hair makes Daisy think of Jiaying…

Daisy never thought to pity herself or forgive Jiaying and Cal for all they did back then. Too much happened too quickly and by the time it was over, another problem arose and the cursed cycle continued. 

In that vulnerable, beautiful moment, Daisy can’t help but sink into the deepest and most desperate dreams of hers...she thinks about her parents, on the night she was born. How happy they told her they’d been, how _blessed_ and how much they treasured her...Jiaying most of all. She had lost a child, another daughter, _Kora,_ before her—Daisy must’ve been the most blessed thing for her back then. They did love her, god knows they did. 

Daisy still thinks about Jiaying’s soft voice and her softer hands and the way her smile could ease any worry she had then. Even Cal’s unrestrained joy at the sight of her...would he havelooked at his granddaughter the same way? 

Even if both of those memories were only a glimpse, a mask of who her parents had been once.

But now, in the arms of her family, with her own daughter at her chest and her heart beating against hers….Daisy thinks she would've liked to be the person Jiaying was, before...before the life they deserved was stolen from them and all was lost. 

That story of tragedy ends with Jiaying and Kora and Cal and anyone Daisy could’ve lived a life with.

A new one starts with Phillipa and Daniel. 

Daisy knows it’ll be a story she’s okay with hearing. 

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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